Paul Thomas Anderson finally addressed the longstanding criticism that his film “One Battle After Another” doesn’t do justice by it’s Black female characters, particularly Perfidia Beverly Hills, as portrayed by Oscar nominee Teyana Taylor.
“We always knew that we were trying to make something complicated. We knew that we weren’t making something that was heroic and we needed to lean into that,” Anderson said backstage at the 98th Academy Awards after accepting the top prize for Best Picture on Sunday. He added, however, that it’s Perfidia’s failures as a revolutionary that ultimately set the stage for Willa’s (Chase Infiniti) evolution.
“I know a little bit about that critique. I know that Teyana has talked about it a lot,” Anderson began in the press room. “I know that we have the portrayal of many different characters. In particular her character, who was so flawed and unfortunately makes decisions that are detrimental to the revolution that she’s trying to fight. It’s complicated.”
And in terms of leaning into Perfidia’s complicated narrative, the filmmaker noted she was an “anti-hero” with her own set of issues.
“We need to own the fact that this woman was suffering not only from postpartum depression, but she had issues of her own that she hadn’t really reconciled with,” Anderson explained. “It’s a very dangerous thing, when you start out and want to change the world, but you start to kind of become selfish; you read your own reviews. That was our hero in Perfidia, who becomes an anti-hero.”
He closed out his remarks saying that Perfidia’s story was used in part to set up the story arc for Willa.
“The point of it is that to set up the story of Willa, the next generation, what happens when your parents, who are damaged and handed quite a difficult history to you, how do you manage that,” Anderson said. “That’s our story. And our story is in Chase, her evolution to — like I talked about in terms of the generational aspect to try to do better.”
Taylor has also addressed some viewers’ concerns over how her character is portrayed in the film while campaigning in the lead up to Sunday.
“I’m like, do you realize the first thing we see of Perfidia is her having a gun to a guy’s head, and he calls her ‘sweet thing’? Are you — are we watching the same film?” Taylor said during an interview with Vanity Fair. “Perfidia kind of dived into the, ‘Oh, you think I’m hot? All right, bet.’”
